There is so much that I could write on my experience of teaching drawing to young children. During our Art Lessons in my Studio in Brisbane, Australia, we had all kinds of different experiences in drawing, here are some of my stories based on what has been for me the most rewarding experience as an Artist/Art Educator.
Drawing is something that young children love to do. From a very young age children like to record their ideas and emotions by drawing. They draw with pencils, crayons and paint on paper, they also love drawing with sticks on the sand.
Young Children draw what is important to them, at home, before they start kindergarten they draw mum, dad, sisters or brothers. They draw a small circle for a dog and a big circle with lots of arms for people. Later on, children start looking for other things to draw, they then, will need to be guided and to be inspired to develop their drawings.
In my experience of teaching art to children for many years I came across the most inspiring and daring drawings by young children. We did many drawings, sometimes children drew spontaneously on their sketch books with black pens and other times we had a theme to inspire them. We looked at different things for our drawings. We drew from memory, from imagination and from observation, we looked at nature and the inside of things: we looked at the inside of computers, we look at the inside of tree bark, dried fish skeleton and the Self.
Nature is the ideal place to find all kind of lines: curvy lines, ragged lines, straight lines, angular lines, diagonal lines, vertical lines, horizontal lines. We also find textures around us in nature and in man-made structures: tree bark, leaves, shells, concrete, cane baskets, animal fur, seed pods, wool, plastic and metal structures. Sometimes we made structures/construction with timber, and other recyclables materials and we drew from them.
On our Brava Art Press website www.bravaartpres.com you will find a series of Tutorials/Projects involving different art techniques, the disciplines of Fine Art: painting, drawing, sculpture and printmaking.
We present, “Pen and Ink Drawing”: this project encourages students to develop confidence when drawing as they cannot go back an erase any mistakes. It is a good way for children to be confident about drawing, as they draw they will make mistakes and they will learn to see their drawings as a whole, with expressive lines, textures and mistakes that will add interest to their work.
Reference: “Pen and Ink” video Tutorial in our YouTube channel www.YouTube.com/bravaartpress
The video shows how to organize this drawing activity in the class room and at home. The video contains information about art materials and equipment needed for the project.
